Wichita Inflatable Owner Speaks Out

April 07, 2010

Duane Zogleman speaks to Eyewitness News.

By Kim Hynes (WICHITA, Kan.)

A horrible accident, that's what the owner of Pure Entertainment calls the death of a five-year-old boy. The boy died last month after falling off of an inflatable. The owner says in spite of what happened, his inflatables are safe.

The sounds of blowers are all you hear most days at Pure Entertainment. "It's been a real challenge. We understand people are reluctant," said owner Duane Zogleman. People are reluctant to come in and bounce after a five-year-old fell off of an inflatable, hit his head and died. "This is the first time we've had an accident like this. It devastated us," he said.

Zogleman says when the incident happened, the boy and five adult family members were using the inflatable called King of the Hill. He says it's designed for climbing not bouncing. "The problem was misuse of the unit. Which we feel real bad about," he said. The King of the Hill inflatable has been removed from the business.

Zogleman says there were three employees working the bounce floor when the accident happened. He says they're trained to stop people from misusing the equipment, but he's not sure if anything was said to the family that day.

After the incident, the City of Wichita found the annual safety inspection performed on the inflatables wasn't valid. The inspectors license had lapsed. Eyewitness News asked Zogleman about that. "Had I known that, I would have gotten that taken care of," he said. Since the code violation, Zogleman says an outside inspector has looked at each inflatable and passed each one. "Even the unit the little boy got hurt on, not a problem. We take safety very seriously," he said.

The city filed an order for Pure Entertainment to remove all of its inflatables. But Zogleman is appealing to the city council to be able to keep them. They should take up the issue in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, the business is open.

On top of the annual safety inspections required by the city, Zogleman says his employees inspect the inflatables each day. He says they check the blower, the seams and even get on them to make sure everything is in tact. Zogleman says he's confident with his safety measures and doesn't plan to make any additional changes.

Each of the inflatables has a small gym style mat on the floor outside of it. The rest of the floor is concrete. Eyewitness News asked if it would be better to have a padded floor. Zogelman says some places have thin carpet but he doesn't think that would make much of a difference. He says he's within safety codes but if changes were made he'd be happy to follow them.

Eyewitness News contacted the attorney for the family of the boy who died. They have declined to comment.

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